I Messed Up When I Let Go
by Heart Full of Elves
Summary: Jack blames himself for the day's outcome. Post-Exit Wounds.


**_Note: Title comes from a misheard lyric from the song Elastic Heart. I still have no idea what the real lyrics is. Warning for lots of angst!_**

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><p>When Tosh's body has been put in the morgue and Gray's into cryo-freeze, when the blood has been mopped up and John Hart has left the city, when Owen and Tosh have been logged out of the system and Gwen has gone home, Jack remains. He stands in the middle of the hub, unable to move, the shock finally catching up to him. He is frozen in place like a statue. Even tears don't threaten to fall, and he wonders if his tear ducts are blocked with dirt from the two thousand years he spent buried underground. Or maybe he's just numb.<p>

Ianto's hand on his shoulder makes him jump, and he turn to look at the young Welshman, whose eyes are red. "I'm going home now," Ianto says.

Jack nods, but says nothing and makes no indication that he will come too.

"You shouldn't be alone tonight," murmurs Ianto, cupping Jack's cheek with a gentle hand.

Jack leans into the touch, and kisses Ianto's palm. "I know, I just… I want to stay here a while," he replies. Here in the hub, where all these things happened which are _all his fault_.

"You know you're always welcome at my flat." Ianto makes eye contact, and Jack nods and even manages a weak but forced smile. He knows. He doesn't deserve this kindness and caring, but he knows that Ianto will never turn him away.

The Welshman leaves without another word, and Jack is left on his own again. In the silence that his solitude offers him, his guilt is magnified. He stumbles over to the old sofa and barely makes it before his legs give out.

All of it, everything that just happened, is because of him. If he hadn't let go of Gray's hand all those centuries ago in the future (that has to be the best paradox of them all) then his little brother would never have become a psychopathic killer. A monster. A _murderer._ If he had just held on and made sure that Gray made it to safety when they were young and innocent boys on the Boeshane Peninsula, Tosh and Owen would still be alive, John Hart would never have set off those bombs, and Gwen and Ianto wouldn't be grieving. If only he had just _checked_ to see if Gray was still there, running beside him, and not been too wrapped up in his own survival…

There's nothing he can do to fix what happened back then. But that doesn't change the fact that he's to blame for all of it. One small mistake when he was a child has had consequences that he never would have imagined. He could almost laugh at how absurd it all is – that one tiny action can lead to so many bigger ones.

He told John that letting himself be buried under Cardiff for two millennia was his penance, and it was. But it isn't enough. He suspects that nothing ever will be. The guilt still weighs like a tonne of dense concrete on his shoulders, not going anywhere.

He takes one deep breath and exhales slowly, then does it again. He needs someone to help him through this because, despite what he said to Gwen about moving on from this and starting from the end, he knows that it will take time. He will need time – they all will – to mourn Tosh and Owen, who died so bravely but will never be recognised for what they did to save Cardiff. He will need time to grasp onto the fact that of his little brother is no more, and know that there will never be a happy reunion between them.

He also needs to be with someone who can comfort him, someone who knows him better than anyone else and can give him whatever he needs. Someone whom he can trust and confide in. Just a year ago, that someone would have been the Doctor. Now it's Ianto Jones.

Jack forces his muscles to move and gets up off the sofa. He leaves the hub and takes a taxi to his lover's flat, not trusting himself behind the wheel. If he drove right now, he could kill someone (most likely himself, and he's had enough of that lately). It's after midnight by the time he lets himself in, so he is not the slightest bit surprised to find that no lights are on. Sneaking into the bedroom, he sheds his clothes and slips between the sheets.

Ianto immediately moves to embrace him, and doesn't let go. It's Ianto who holds onto him, who helps put him back together after being broken. Jack clings to Ianto as if he were a lifebuoy, his eyes dry, his throat sore, and his body not even shaking. Numb.

"I can't feel anything," he admits after a while. "I need… I need you to make me feel alive."

And Ianto does.

It doesn't stop the guilt, and it doesn't make Jack blame himself any less, and he knows he doesn't deserve what Ianto freely gives (if the Welshman had any sense at all, he would have run a long time ago). But just for tonight, Jack is not alone. And just for tonight, he doesn't wish that permanent death would grant him sweet oblivion.


End file.
